The invention relates to a pneumatic tire for vehicles, in particular a tire the architecture of which is optimized to provide good handling performance while retaining high-speed durability.
The patent application EP 0 790 143 describes a tire comprising a crown extended by two respective sidewalls and two respective beads, a carcass structure anchored in each side of the tire in said beads, said crown comprising at least one reinforcing ply having parallel reinforcements oriented at an angle α relative to the circumferential direction and a first crown reinforcement having cords substantially oriented in the circumferential direction, wherein the first crown reinforcement cords are made of a low elastic modulus organic fiber cord and the crown further comprises a pair of axially spaced edge plies made of high modulus organic fiber cords.
According to this document, the resulting tire has a substantially rounded ground contacting area and, as a consequence, good high-speed durability and handling performance.
It is an object of the invention to provide a tire having an improved control over its crown curvature and its ground contacting area and accordingly, which has improved handling performance while retaining high-speed durability.